The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-05-05


up from his great political manuscript
and spoke:
"Grandchild, don't notice it. Remem-
Der the saying that whoever writes anony-
nous letters must have come anonymous.
The underbred send them to the lawful
bred"
"Here am I, grandpa, described as still
in love with Mark Hanson, and most in
innate things related of the period of my
engagement to him. l showed them to
Dave, and asked him if he had received
any such letters. He confessed that he
had, but would not let me see them.
shall tell him to-day that until he dis
covers their author will not be his wife
1t is the duty of spirited man to un-
cover the slanderer of his betrothed.
You would do it if you were still young"
"Poor Carrie! though have fought
my duels ON less matters than that, in
the days when 1 edited our political organ,
never would give an underhand corre-
spondent dignity enough to trace him or
her out. You can't suspect Mark Hanson;
but whom else have you offended"
"No, always found him the man of
honor. But it is the nature of these
anonymous letters to make us suspicious
of everybody. Granny, shall take a
desperate remedy. You go on with your
memoirs!
AS she called for her saddle mare to
ride over the mountain, the poor old
colonel wiped his spectacles of film and
his eyes of tears, and resumed the COM
position of his never-finished book on the
times of Robert Goodloe Harper.
"Dear Carried" he exclaimed aloud
"She is my last unmarried grandchild,
anu l believe they all received anony-
nous letters. 1t must be disease of
society"
From her grandfathers hermitage, in
the narrow Pleasant Valley, Carrie was
soon bounding along the rills of Israel's
creek and up through the chestnut
wooded slopes of the great South Noun
tain, fearless of man or beast so that her
bloodhound followed along with her;
and as she turned the crest of the road in
the gap and overlook the mail buggy
where the great prospect of Catoctin
Valley stretched below and afar, she saw
her amiable hound, as quick as any coach
dog, running between the mail buggy's
wheels.
Mark Hanson had given her that dog
in the days when she thought she loved
him.
1t was the only present she had not re-
turned, because Negrofoot, as the hound
was named-from his former use in
chasing slaves-had been her gallant, too,
making the wild mountain paths safe and
sociable to Carrie as the streets of Mar
tinsburg, where she had been reared. Her
grandfather, who had been editor and
official at the capital of his State, lost
heart and faith after the great convulsion
Of the war, and took a little patch of
patrimonial property among the noun
tains to get pure air and indite his recol-
lections.
There, Carrie, an orphan child, who
had never looked with sentiment ON man
before, fell in love and cured it by loving
twice.
She had found when plain, dutiful, store
keeping Dave Hightman came around her
the explanation of her frequent fallings
out with Mark Hanson, his friend.
1t was that she had never been truly In
love with Mark, but only infatuated.
She was now to do an act as impetuous
ss her first love, and her frank rebellion
against it; and the clustering village she
had beheld from the mountain top was
soon echoing with the hoofs Of her saal-
die mare. Entering place of business
there, she confronted plain but beaming
young man at the business desk, who
cried:
"Why, Carrier
"Here, sir, is another of those letters
What have you done about them?"
Nothing, though have also had .
third one. They contain nothing tangi-
BILE, nothing ! could believe. Why let
them worry us. my darling, when they
create no prejudice between uss Some
woman, dare say"
"Dsyid Hightman, win not be pa
tient. II Il not my famiiy's way. They
resented and detected foes Of society,
such - write these letters"
Carrie, much = loye yeu, lvlll ~
q: = II +;